SOME EXPERIENCES IN CAMP LIFE. 131 



tualty " locked " them, although the horses would almost sit upon 

 their haunches in their efforts to hold back. We eventually reached 

 the Valley of Cripple Creek in safety, but very badly used up. 



Cripple Creek had several large mining establishments along 

 its banks, at one of these, the Eagle mines we stopped for the night 

 Here, also, Lawrens was to stay, and the next morning I drove a 

 few miles further to the camp of the party I was to join. 



There Avas nobody to b$ seen when I drove up, except Aleck, 

 the negro cook, who showed me to my quarters, and then con- 

 tinued to rattle around among his pots and pans. The tents were 

 pitched on a beautiful spot in the bend of the creek, (or river as it 

 really was,) covered with soft grass and shaded by locust and wal- 

 nut trees in profusion; the ground was level and about ten feet 

 higher than the water of the creek. There were three tents besides 

 the "dining saloon": one for "Little Dick," the Engineer-in-charge, 

 one for transitman and levelman, (which Porter and I occupied,) 

 and a very large one christened " Purgatory " where the seven 

 other menbers of the party slept' 



While I was taking notes of my surroundings, the party came 

 tramping home for dinner, and cordial yells, gripsand slaps greeted 

 me as I met them, for I had known nearly all of them before on 

 various corps, and some of us had begun life together. Porter, a 

 great tall, slim fellow from my own section of country, made me sit 

 up nearly all night to tell him the home news; and while we talked 

 sounds of hilaritj' reached us now and then from Purgatory, 

 where poker was the chief attraction, and an occasional song 

 would break out upon the quiet stillness of the night with rather 

 jarring effect. 



We were in a little valley of our own at this camp, surrounded 

 on all sides by high hills over which we tramped for many days, 

 running lines through places apparently inaccessable. 



A part of our work lay along the cliffs which rose almost verti- 

 cally from the water for many feet. We took great pleasure in 

 starting huge boulders from the slopes above these cliffs, watch 

 them roll down with ever increasing speed to take tremendous leaps 

 through 200 or 300 feet of air into the deep water of the river, with 

 a roar like thunder. 



One of our boys — a little fellow from Philadelphia, named Jerry, 



